Armando Christian Pérez, known professionally as Pitbull, is an American rapper and singer. He began his career in the early 2000s and recorded reggaeton, Latin hip hop, and crunk music under a multitude of labels. He signed with TVT Records to release his debut studio album, M.I.A.M.I. (2004), which was executive produced by Lil Jon. It moderately entered the Billboard 200, along with his second and third albums, El Mariel (2006) and The Boatlift (2007). His fourth album, Pitbull Starring in Rebelution (2009) was supported by the singles "I Know You Want Me " and "Hotel Room Service", both of which yielded his mainstream breakthrough and peaked at numbers two and eight on the US Billboard Hot 100, respectively.

Jonathan H. Smith, better known by his stage name Lil Jon, is an American rapper and record producer. He was instrumental in the commercial breakthrough of the hip hop subgenre crunk in the early 2000s and is often credited as a progenitor of the genre. He was the frontman of the crunk group Lil Jon & the East Side Boyz, with whom he has released five albums. In addition, Lil Jon served as a producer for most recordings by artists of whom popularized the genre; these include Pitbull, Too Short, E-40, Ludacris, Ciara, and Usher.